


Be the Green Grass Above Me

by PudentillaMcMoany



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell & Related Fandoms, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (TV), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Culture of mourning, Death, Decay (non graphic), Established Relationship, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Mention of attempted suicide (not graphic), Necromancy, Smut, Top!Segundus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:48:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27760270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PudentillaMcMoany/pseuds/PudentillaMcMoany
Summary: Segundus dies. Childermass has always been a practical man, and sets to resurrect him.
Relationships: John Childermass/John Segundus
Comments: 17
Kudos: 24





	Be the Green Grass Above Me

“It is unchristian, really.”

“At night he leaves his bed.”

“Has not slept a jot in weeks.”

“He sleeps in the day.”

“Sometimes.”

“He used to come back in the morning.”

“He used to be here at night.”

“The first days.”

“He used to have all sort of meetings in the library.”

“The windows shaking wild with magic.”

“Himself wild with magic.”

“No-one sleeping a jot.”

“But to no avail.”

“They could, or would not, bring him back.”

“John Childermass not having anything to exchange.”

“John Segundus being so uninteresting to them.”

“Too old.”

“Too plain.”

“Too dead.”

“That’s when he had to bury him.”

“And started leaving at night.”

“Consorting.”

“ _On the hard soil his groaning breast he threw/ And rolled and grovelled, as to earth he grew_.”

“As I said, _unchristian_.”

\-----

The sun is shining on Starecross. It is a bright spring morning. The songbird and the heat in the air sweetly prelude to summer, wild garlic blooms small white stars and on the path to Starecross lilac trees are heavy-scented with purple sprays, which one could, if one were so inclined, pick up to make syrup.

Against the gaiety of the day, the cobalt sky, Starecross stands indifferent, its stillness a stark counterpoint to the ebb and noise around it.

Within there are no servants. The students have all been sent home. The home is not yet in disrepair, for it has not yet been a week since the funeral, but it is dusty. Leaves crunch underneath Mr Honeyfoot’s shoes as he walks down the corridor to see John Childermass.

“Mr Childermass.” The day had been so bright: he squints in the dark library, knocks over a pile of books as he makes his way towards the centre of the room.

“Mr Honeyfoot,” nods Childermass. He sits on the floor in the middle of a large empty space, the tables having all been removed to the sides. Untidy and untied, his hair falls ragged about his shoulders. He is wearing but a shirt, coat and waistcoat discarded, but his riding boots are still on. It rakes at Mr Honeyfoot’s heart. Childermass is wearing his good breeches, which he had worn for the funeral. He must have not changed at all, barely left the library. All around him is a circle in chalk, and all around it a wider circle, of candles, vials and animal bones, basins filled with water, empty and overturned.

“Mr Childermass, will you not open the windows? It is a beautiful day.”

Childermass, gazing up from his notes for the first time, flashes him a bemused look. _What a ridiculous notion! A beautiful day! the_ look seems to say, but Childermass himself remains silent. He shrugs.

“Mrs Honeyfoot sends a pie. Here, I shall leave it on this table for you. And a bottle of claret, for strength.”

“Offer my thanks to Mrs Honeyfoot.”

“I will!” Says Mr Honeyfoot. He attempts some conversation. He cautiously ventures topics such as the calling back of pupils, the opening the school, the appointing of a new headmaster- the last one a matter particularly disagreeable to Childermass, but the most urgent one. Childermass, however, is deep in study, and will not bother with such trivialities. Mr Honeyfoot stands some more, wringing his hands, and finally resolves to leave.

He has reached the door when he turns to Childermass, already deep in work as if he has forgotten all about him.

“We are all worried, Mr Childermass.”

Childermass laughs. “You need not worry about me, Mr Honeyfoot. I am quite well.” He nods towards the pie on the table. “As you can see, I am being kept fed.”

“We are all scared for you,” says Mr Honeyfoot. “You are looking like not of this world.”

\----

Childermass works better at night. During the day, no matter how tightly he draws the blinds, he knows, not from hearing or seeing, but from _knowing_ , that there is activity outside: workers in the fields, children playing; or, a whiff of chimney smoke carried by the wind, or the tremulous gust of someone trying their hand at magic. Life outside Starecross carries on. John Segundus has been dead a fortnight. This vexes him. Not the death, that he is setting to rights, if only- but the carrying on. Was John Segundus not of John Uskglass? And is John Uskglass not the king of this land? If so, then why is he letting it bloom and grow, and buzz and _fuck_ amidst the ardours of Spring, as if nothing had passed? Childermass wishes that the king should set it to rights. He wishes the flowers to wither, a hailstorm on the crops. All the faeries and magicians in the world- he damns them all to hell.

And then he freezes.

He runs to a basin, fills it with water. He quarters it with shaking hands.

He has been denied help anywhere he asked, be it heaven, earth or faerie. _Everywhere_ , he thought, and yet there is one place still.

He knows what to do now. He needs a cart and a spade.

\------

“Oh, the exhumation of John Segundus. Now, that is one that I remember. How long after the funeral, you say? […] Well, by then he would have been slightly- for you see, we did not embalm- no. A pity. A real pity, I think. But you see, by that point it would have been quite too late. For it is quite a ride from Wheelwright to Starecross, oh, there is a fine upholsterer there who could have done handsomely on his own- or well, almost- they could have sent to us for the finer details only. But they insisted on us. Nothing else would do, you see, and a grand funeral was necessary, I was made to understand, because of the lofty connexions of the deceased.

I was made to understand that the gentleman had been in the house for a time, for- er, _magical_ purposes, so that when we arrived, we thought we would have quite some work to do. That is to say, the few of us dared to go, for magic might be a parlour game for you in the South, but we take it seriously here in the North. Where was I now. When we arrived… Yes. But the state of the deceased was not too bad, really. Well, considering. Although we did bathe him, on accounts of the- for you see, some of the spells, I believe, had required _tampering_. And such. It was quite a grievous matter, I recall. A well-loved gentleman. Made the more difficult by the principal executor, quite a coarse man, who insisted to oversee the process. He might have been afeard, I thought, that we should steal something of what was now, by all intents and purposes, his. He insisted to hold the wake all on his own, three nights it was, even though they could have employed professional grievers. And it rather seems to me, if I may, that he thought there may be some chance that the gentleman might reveal himself un-dead, so to speak, and suddenly re-awaken. Although you will understand- after all it had been days, and even with the cold- for you see, for it was summer after all. The gentleman was- _ah_ , quite certainly dead. But perhaps the executor did not wish to take any risks. Seen as his being the executor was quite a matter of contention with the family. That is, the little family that the defunct still had. Decent people.

We laid him down in a casket which we were made to upholster in velvet. A Johannite funeral, as they call it, is a commonplace thing now, but at the time I had never been requested the likes of it. All in black it was, with black trimmings, for you know, that is the colour of the Raven King John Uskglass, and the deceased, although from the South, had come to consider himself his subject. We furnished him with ravens on his breastplate, which was silver, as were the coffin’s handles. A beautiful coffin it was too, made of elm. Oh, but he was a well-respected man. A beautiful funeral, and a beautiful grave. I was grieved when I heard it had been desecrated.”

Interview to Samuel Chapman, undertaker, by Tom Levy. As quoted in Rudd, Aoife, _The morgue and the raven: magic and the culture of death in England - 1817-1867_ , Leiden, Brill, 2004, p. 66.

\------

Childermass has fallen asleep at his desk. This is not an uncommon occurrence in this stage of his life- the stage of his life being the one that commenced with John Segundus’s death. One thing is however uncommon: when he wakes up, this time, he hears noises. Something moves in the house with a rattling of objects being shifted, a scuttling hungry animal energy.

Childermass rises, picks up a candle. He looks at the table in the centre of the room, where he has laid the corpse in the morning. The corpse is not there. His heart starts to hammer in his throat.

He stumbles through the house towards the source of the noise, clumsy with haste, flinging doors open and stumbling on carpets. Finally he rushes towards the kitchen, whence comes the worst of the noise. The windows are all open. Warmth floods the room; a good warmth, not the sickly one of a house that has been closed too long.

Perfectly contained inside a blade of light, John Segundus sits at the table. He is luminous and small, hair mussed, clothes soiled, paler than usual perhaps, but otherwise perfectly alive, surrounded by apple cores and broken crockery, spooning potted liver out of the jar, juices greasing his chin. The arrival of Childermass distracts him. He looks at him and smiles. Childermass grabs the threshold for balance.

“John,” says Segundus. “Pardon the racket. I was famished. There was no-one here to help.”

Childermass says nothing. He walks towards Segundus, hardly blinking, lest he should lose him from his sight.

“I think I am all better now. Oh, but I was so very ill!” Segundus looks at his clothes, shakes his head at the state of them. He beckons Childermass with his hand outstretched.

“I dreamed every night of you,” he says. “I dreamed that I was-” and there, his voice cracks.

He lets go of the spoon, which falls on the table with a comical clang. He looks at it, dabs his fingertips politely on a napkin. He straightens his back and draws a very sharp, very small breath with his eyes still on the table. Childermass kneels in front of him, and rests his head on his lap. Segundus strokes it automatically. His fingers catch on the knots in his hair.

“What have you done?”

\------

Childermass guides him through the corridors, towards his room. Segundus cannot be persuaded to sit on the bed in his dirty clothes, so he waits on the floor while Childermass kindles up the hearth, fetches pails of water from the kitchen, draws the bathtub to the warmest corner of the room. Childermass must master himself throughout these lengthy procedures. He has not kissed Segundus yet. He very much wants to. He does not know what Segundus thinks of it.

Finally, the water boils. The bath is filled, the optimal temperature achieved. Not that Segundus fusses, but Childermass does. He helps Segundus out of the clothes he had chosen for his funeral, the beautiful waistcoat embroidered with flowers, the soft muslin neckerchief. He tosses them aside, saving only Segundus’s spectacles, which Childermass had, who knows why, tucked in Segundus’s waistcoat pocket. He cannot see the clothes being of much use to John in the sorry state they are in. A dead body, after all, whether in a simple shroud or the best finery, will do what dead bodies do. Which is leaking, for the most part.

As for Segundus, it takes Childermass an effort to finally look at his body. Segundus had seemed mostly unblemished in the bright light of the kitchen, but Childermass knows full well that there are hidden places where decay can hide. He half-expects the ravages of death to show on Segundus’s body: he fears. But Segundus is untouched. Prone to blushing, freckled-shouldered, healthy if not young: he is as the same as when Childermass has last seen him alive, leaving for Sheffield not three weeks ago.

“How do I look, then,” blushes Segundus, as Childermass kneels to undo the buttons on his calves. Childermass shakes his head. He has no words for it. He rolls Segundus’s stockings down his legs. Segundus stands first on one foot, next on the other, hands delicately pressing on the top of Childermass’s head for balance.

Later, Segundus is in the bath. Childermass is sitting on the floor, painstakingly scraping the earth from underneath Segundus’s fingers, when Segundus invites him in.

He undresses under Segundus’s gaze. He does not know what to make of it- Segundus has taken his scrutiny with his usual equanimity, but what if it is Childermass whose body is too damaged- what if Segundus finds him wanting. It would not be impossible: Childermass thinks himself wanting. Where Segundus is soft and warm, cheeks and elbows red from the heat of the bath, he is ashen and angular, haggard, feels and looks like he has aged a hundred years in the space of two weeks.

Segundus is still looking curiously at Childermasss as he lowers himself in the bath. It is not a large tub; their knees bump together. It takes some manoeuvring for them to find a position, Segundus comfortably sat with his legs grazing Childermass’s hips on either side, Childermass with his knees to his chest.

He watches Segundus. It is about all he can do, all his energies taken up by monitoring the rising and falling of Segundus’s chest, the heat radiating from his legs, from his eyes. Segundus patiently accepts this scrutiny. He raises a hand, drops it in the water. “You look so very tired!” He finally exclaims, as if he could not hold it in any longer. Childermass rolls his eyes, but it feels like he is aping himself. Segundus sees right through it.

“I do not mean to presume,” he continues, undeterred. “But it seems-” and there, Segundus hesitates. With a bracing breath, he gingerly touches Childermass’s neck. It goes through Childermass like a lightning bolt, which Segundus must also see, because his mouth softens. He is even more careful when he places his other hand on Childermass’s collarbone. “I am sorry to have caused you pain.”

“Sorry?” Childermass looks to the side huffing a laugh. He cannot breathe. “Sorry.” He repeats, incredulously shaking his head. He takes Segundus’s hands from where they are sitting on his neck and kisses them, guides them over his shoulders to hide his face in the crook of Segundus’s neck. They stay like that for a while.

When the water becomes cold, they get to bed. It is not exactly night, but it is not exactly day either. Who can tell anyway, with the windows shut. Segundus is wearing a nightshift, into which he has been coaxed by Childermass, and Childermass is wearing nothing at all; they get under the cold fragrant covers. The bed has been made fresh; Segundus died in this bed, but Childermass does not want to think about it. They are back to not-touching, which he disapproves of. He touches Segundus’s warm leg with a cold foot. Segundus covers it with his, open his arm to let Childermass rest on his chest. Childermass nuzzles his neck, curls a hand around the downy hair at Segundus’s temple. He does not want to fall asleep: he is very scared, and very happy. But Segundus, who Childermass had feared would smell like he last had smelled him- that is, one week back, that is, sickly-sweet, powdery and _dead_ , only smells like when Childermass had _last_ smelled him- that is three weeks before, that is milky-sweet and sweaty; in short, alive- and the relief and the tiredness are too much, and after all Childermass has not slept properly in weeks, and at all in days, and the last thing he can feel is Segundus’s arms closing around his shoulders.

Later, Childermass wakes up to the sound of rain. The windows are still closed and the curtains drawn, but the spectral shape of lightning illuminates the room, dark except for the dying embers in the fireplace. Childermass wrestles with time. He feels Segundus’s weight tilting the bed, and thinks it must be April- but then again Segundus is dead, and so it must be May, but then again- he remembers, and sits up.

Segundus is awake, was already sitting in the dark when Childermass awakened. He watches Childermass coming to his senses, curious and serious. He touches his head, then stands to light a candle from the fireplace. 

“I had no heart to wake you up.” He sits, replacing the candle. From the bedside table, its orange glow makes a halo around his head. He is the only warm thing in the world.

“How long have I been sleeping?”

“It is still dark out.”

“Did you sleep at all?”

A flash of lightning ricochets from a mirror. Segundus shudders, shakes his head. “I cannot.” Childermass frowns. “Oh, John, no, do not fret, it is not like that. There is nothing wrong with me, I believe. I shall sleep once I have settled into it. But it is all so strange. How much sharper things have become!”

“But you are well,” says Childermass.

“I am well. It is good to be alive again, I think.”

Childermass suddenly wants to see more of Segundus. He stretches towards Segundus’s side of the bed to light a candle from the one on his nightstand, and there: the light flickers on Segundus’s face, illuminating the noble high forehead, the sharp nose. Segundus is a small sun, and Childermass gravitates towards him. His heart beats madly against his ribcage when Segundus tilts back his head to kiss him.

The last time Segundus kissed Childermass was three weeks ago, in this very bed. The last time _Childermass_ kissed Segundus was one week ago, also in this bed. Childermass had fancied himself overwhelmed then but thinks he is going deranged now, as with a hand he touches Segundus’s face, drawing the line of his cheekbone with a thumb, reverently pressing it between their kissing mouths, stopping the kiss so he can look, short-breathed, at himself touching Segundus.

Segundus takes his hand, places a kiss on the palm of it. “You love me so much,” he says.

He shakes his head and laughs a small laugh. He does not laugh at Childermass. He is not mocking, but self-effacing. They do not say such things, the two of them. There is no need, because they understand each other; or so Childermass had thought. But Segundus has said that Childermass loves him, and he would never say anything that he thinks might not be true, and he has said it in such a way that he seems to have only now realised it, and that the realisation has surprised him. This pains Childermass. How could he not know? He is about to tell him. _You should have known_. But Segundus takes his face into his hands and kisses him again.

When Childermass is kissing John Segundus, he likes to keep his eyes open. He enjoys looking at Segundus kissing him, the concentrated set of his eyebrows, the solemn look. He is especially fond of the right corner of Segundus’s mouth where he has a line like a frown, and that is what he looks at now, and the tenderness and the grief- why should there be grief after all- But Segundus has died and come back and Childermass had thought that he knew, but he was dead and must not have known, and the grief new and old coaxes a small pained sound out of Childermass’s mouth. He touches Segundus’s hips, and Segundus, eyes closed, moves to straddle him. The kiss turns wetter, less prim (Childermass is never prim, but Segundus always is for both of them); Childermass licks at Segundus’s lower lip, and bites it. He slides his hands under Segundus’s nightshirt, which coaxes out of him a sharp breath. He traces Segundus’s bony hips and the soft curve of his belly, pushes up against the grain of hair to close his hands on either side of his ribcage, so that he is gently stroking Segundus’s nipples with his thumbs. Segundus pants a little, stops kissing to look down at Childermass. He is flushed and wide-eyed, his hair sticking up on the side of his head. Like this, he is taller than Childermass, and Childermass looks up to him, which is, after all, how it should be by rights. Segundus should be adored. Childermass cups his arse. “Nobody.” he croaks. He is a coarse man, unsuited to the solemnity of the moment. He carries on. “Nobody has ever been loved so well,” he tells Segundus.

Segundus’s looks, abashed, to one side. His chest has turned red. By now they have started softly rutting against each other, Childermass’s erection bobbing against Segundus’s leg. Segundus takes a hold of Childermass’s wrists, pulling him down so that he is lying with his back to the bed, Segundus on top of him kissing his collarbone, his chest, the side of his stomach. As Segundus descends, his cock draws a wet line along Childermass’s body, tip purpling and tightening. He does not touch it, nor asks Childermass to touch it. Instead he takes Childermass’s dick in his mouth, holds him still with firm hands on either side of his hips. Childermas holds onto the bed railings, hiking a leg on Segundus’s shoulder to which Segundus turns to press a distracted kiss before returning to his task. He licks the tip of Childermass’s dick, long circling laps with the broad of his tongue. He flashes a dark look to him. “I have- I must- will you let me…” he says, cheeks blushing or flushed, placing kisses on Childermass’s groin, the inside of his tight, his stomach. His skin feels feverishly hot, his wet hair cold.

Childermass wants to say, _did you not hear me, I’d do anything_. _You name it._ He nods. He touches a hand to Segundus’s face, which falls to his hair when Segundus resumes working his mouth on his dick, hands cupping Childermass’s arse, holding it apart as his magic works its way inside Childermass, a pressing wetness that sends his legs shaking. It is the magic that finally coaxes a sound out of him, something like a sob; he remembers. One is quick to forget. Three days after Segundus’s death, he already had trouble recalling his voice. It had taken Segundus’s magic a week to disappear from the house, and by then Childermass had already forgotten what it smelled like. Now the familiarity crashes into him, like recalling a song from your childhood. He closes his eyes, brings a hand to his mouth and bites at it. Segundus hums his appreciation around his dick. He cups his balls and works him in deep short bursts and trailing licks of his tongue, until his mouth and his lapping warm magic have the best of Childermass, who comes shamefully soon into Segundus’s mouth.

Segundus crawls up between his legs then, serious, intense, in all matters a scholar. He tugs gently at Childermass’s hips so that he turns over with his stomach to the mattress. Childermass has come quite undone, and lets himself being moved around, entrusting himself to Segundus’s care. He sighs when Segundus touches the small of his back with the warmth of his hand, makes a helpless lost sound when Segundus kisses his neck and his shoulder, and finally, slowly, presses his dick into him.

Childermass has not had a dick inside him for weeks. Even with Segundus’s magic soothing him, it chafes when he is first breached. He welcomes it. It reassures him that he is alive, that Segundus is alive, they are well (not entirely well yet, but well enough). Everything Segundus does delights him, but he is especially delighted that he should feel such a mundane discomfort, so easily solved by application and time, after the horror of the past weeks. Segundus however stops, ever worried, checks with him whether he should resume. Childermass does not say anything. It is too preposterous; he has no time for it, or words left in him. He turns his head so he can nip at Segundus’s mouth, presses his arse against Segundus’s hips until it coaxes Segundus to push into him again, this time at Childermass’s chosen rhythm, fast and shallow at first and deeper and wetter as they go, rutting onto each other sometimes mismatched and sometimes blessedly, perfectly in tune, both of which are equally delightful, the sublime and the messy, the clean rhythmical pounding and the wet teasing, all the while the two men do not make a noise between them, trained as they are to secrecy, Segundus merely panting hot breaths against Childermass’s neck. He comes with a wounded small noise, which he buries in his hair. After that he stays inside him until he has turned soft, kissing Childermass feverishly on his shoulder, his arm, his cheek, the parts of him he can reach.

\--------

After that, it is easy enough to resume their work where they left it. They clean up the library some, they remove Childermass’s attempts at necromancy. Segundus does not want to have them around, so Childermass confines them to a dark corner. Otherwise, Segundus is delighted with everything. He likes sitting near the fire, and being warmed. He likes to drink hot milky tea and scalding hot baths, which Childermass tirelessly draws for him, hurling pail after pail of water up the stairs. He likes kissing Childermass, which Childermass approves of. Both like the novelty of being together, that is truly together, in the big empty house. Nothing has changed, really- much of their days are devoted to translating the King’s letters, that is what little they can do _in absentia_ of Vinculus. But it is one thing to work with the constant humming of want, the distracting desire to touch and the knowledge of not being able to, and another thing is to work when one is allowed to do something with his want, for instance to sweep the books and papers from the library table with a deft movement of an arm and pick up Segundus, who weighs almost nothing, so that one can take him while standing as he is reclined on the desk, not even having made it out of his clothes, the legs of the table wobbling, creaking, Segundus asking and Childermass delivering, the two of them not confined to silence anymore.

They mostly keep to the library, except for sleeping, which they do in Segundus’s room, and eating, which they do in the kitchen. Without staff, Starecross is immense and shrunken at once, their livelihoods confined to what rooms they are able to keep tidy. Even so, it is not an exact science. They abandon half-explored rooms and portions of the library like an army abandons camp, leaving nature to run its course with it.

They get on well. They work side by side, consume whatever food is in the kitchen at varying speeds. Childermass looks at their ever-dwindling resources with a small stinging dread. It is a well-stocked pantry; they have some time. But Segundus is always hungry, an appetite he never had in his previous life, and eats his way through loaves of bread, increasingly stale and increasingly necessitating toasting; hunks of cheese, preserves. Childermass, on the other hand, seldom eats anymore. He muses that his content at having Segundus beside him again is nourishment enough. Segundus frets.

One day, three or four after Segundus’s return, they are sitting in the kitchen. Segundus is eating salted herring, Childermass is eating nothing. He touches Segundus’s ankle, persuading him to put his foot on his lap. He discards his shoe, curls a hand around his stockinged foot, cold, slightly clammy. It is unpleasant and intimate. So is love. He feels that he is only now getting to know Segundus. Now, in the empty house, they share a familiarity that they never would have been allowed before, with the servants and the students present. They are the only two people in the world. Childermass is about to say it, when Segundus, who has also been looking, but with a distant unfocused gaze, snaps out of it.

“What are we to do, John? With my school. We cannot let it go to waste.”

Childermass does not reply. He has not thought so far yet. He is not ready to share John with the world. Moreover, there are still some kinks to work at in this resuscitation affair.

It is still raining. It will not stop again.

\--------

They are lying in bed. Thunder rolls behind the closed windows, the roaring fireplace both lighting their room and keeping them warm. There is no fear for it to burn into the room, no need to leave it a bare smouldering at night: Childermass barely ever sleeps these days, can watch over the fire and Segundus.

Segundus is looking at the ceiling, hands neatly folded on top of the covers, which are neatly folded under his chin. They are new and newly pressed too, their last set.

“Animals do not like me,” he grimaces.

“What, Cook’s canaries? They are just testy that we never let them out into the kitchen. Remember, how she used to.”

“They squirm when they see me.”

“Fearful creatures.”

“There was a mouse in the kitchen the other day. It looked at me and flew like it had the devil on his heels.”

“Mice fear people.”

“Never me. Animals always did like me.”

“Now you are exaggerating.”

“Mrs Bennet never comes to the house anymore. She used to always come to the house after a hunt. She used to sleep in my bed.”

Mrs Bennet is an ugly runt of a cat with a temper. If anything, Childermass is grateful that she does not go near them anymore. But he does not say that. He says: “It is because I am sleeping with you now. It is me she does not like.”

“I tried to pet her the other day and she hissed at me. She won’t come near me.”

Childermass has nothing to say to this. He tugs at Segundus’s wrist. Segundus straddles him, brushes Childermass’s hair back from his temples. He is sweet and warm. Childermass is always so cold.

“Perhaps I do not belong here anymore.”

The thought of it chills Childermass to the bone. He thinks that Segundus is exactly where he belongs, in his arms. He almost says as much. He bites his tongue. He raises himself on his elbows so he can kiss Segundus.

Later, Segundus lies on his back. Childermass fucks him, a torturously slow making Segundus feel his dick all the way into his arse and then slipping it out, slickly, until Segundus raises his hips to re-join him, belly taut with exertion, still caked with his own come. He is beautiful, surrounded by sheets that have come undone, hair glistening with copper and gold in the light flooding the room. Childermass tells him as much, lowers his head to Segundus’s. He pulls at his hair so that Segundus must tilt his head, so that Childermass can talk into his ear.

“You are mine. I raised you from the dead and you are mine. No one can take you from my side.”

\-----

Turns out that, whoever it is, it can.

However, it is not Segundus they mean to take, that much is clear.

Ominous clouds begin circling Starecross, beasts croaking in flight, too large and too dark if they are indeed birds. It is not as if Childermass and Segundus can see, they have lived with the blinds closed for so long and they are certainly not going to start now. But they see their shapes backlit by green lights, flashing behind the closed curtains. The wind howls wild with animal sounds, not of wolves but something darker, looming slavering things that are only waiting for them to come out, driven out by despair, to get what they have been given a right to.

Childermass grows weaker and weaker. Food and rest, what little Segundus coaxes him to take, do him no good. It is a different sort of weariness, the one that comes from selling one’s soul.

Segundus realises as much; he is a bright man, and not much escapes him. Childermass loves him for it, although it is inconvenient. He is resting his head on the library table when Segundus bursts into the room, pulling a chair close to him.

“I wish that you return me to death.”

“That is out of the question.”

“You are dying.”

“I am.”

“You have bargained your life for mine!”

“I have.”

“I shan’t have it.”

“I’m afraid there is no other way. You see, I have signed a contract, and the terms of the contract are rather clear. If you are to come back to life, I must die and offer my service. In wars against Fairy kingdoms and the like.” Childermass rolls his eyes at the last word, smiling a smile that Segundus does not return. “It is a simple bargain, not disadvantageous, truly. I thought I would have more time, but they are in their right.”

“What a ridiculous plan. How do we pull you away from it?”

“We do not, under any circumstances. You heard me, it is your death or mine. I will go and I will go gladly, knowing that you are safe.”

“But have you truly thought this through, Childermass?” The sound of his surname brings him back to the first months of their acquaintance- or perhaps it is the reproach in Segundus’s voice. It makes him sentimental. He wishes he did not need to go. He is so very tired. He is growing unfocused. He shakes his head no, involuntarily. “John, I shall only be safe for a short time. Ten, perhaps twenty years! And then I shall die, and what? Should I die begging to be sent to hell, so I can see you again? Spend eternity at the employment of- oh, I do not ever want to _think_ of whom, waging petty wars against _fairies_?”

Segundus’s voice shakes. He rubs at his eyes with the heels of his hands. It is Childermass’s fault. Childermass would never want to inflict him this small pain, let alone wish him worse. He is ready to concede he has perhaps miscalculated. He has perhaps gotten so caught up in his love for Segundus, he has failed to consider Segundus’s love for him. A silly mistake. But he had not been quite himself when performing the spell. He had been despairing. One is wont to be made less rational by grief.

“And how about my school? Oh, John, I do not want to- please do not think I am not so very grateful. I am! But how is Starecross to be a respectable business when it is led by- by whatever I am now? Animals are afraid of me! This surely cannot be, John. Think of the scandal of a principal dying and then coming back to life. It is quite disgraceful. Think of the students.”

“What say you, then.”

“If it is death for death, then I must die again. Oh, please do not cry.”

“I am not crying,” says Childermass. Only when Segundus leans to kiss cheek he finds that it is wet.

“I do not know where I was before you found me, but it was not hell, and you shall certainly not go to hell when you die. Oh, it is painful to think of it. I do not wish to inflict this upon you. I wish it could be me burying you, to spare you the pain. I wish we would die together when we are very old. But _like this_ , I cannot let you go. What kind of life would that be. So, you see, John, I must be the one to die. I have quite thought this trough.”

“If you think I am going to kill you…” Childermass sets out to warn him, but Segundus touches a hand to his mouth.

“I cannot be killed.”

“That we do not know.”

“I know. I have tried it already.”

Childermass’s vision blackens, a flash of fear so violent he thinks he will retch. He leans on the back of the chair, knuckles going white on the edge of the table.

“I was almost certain I would not die,” Segundus explains, patting at Childermass’s forehead with a kerchief that he has wetted from one of the many silver basins. It smells of lemon and cloves. Childermass breaths long steadying breaths. “Never…” He says. His voice shakes pathetically.

“Never again, I promise. I was curious. You have worked out this spell thoroughly. It is a thing of beauty.” Segundus smiles a tense smile, touching their foreheads together. “But now we must break it.”

\----

“Oh dear, look! Mr Childermass!”

Mrs Honeyfoot pulls herself from the window only to ask a maid to please fetch her cap, to look at herself in the mirror, adjusting her hair. Mr Honeyfoot, who had been snoozing on the armchair, does not quite appreciate at first the magnitude of the moment, until his wife shakes him by the shoulder, coaxing him to look out of the window just in time to see a greatcoat-clad figure disappear under the threshold, before hearing three steady, strong knocks on the door. Mr Honeyfoot is still tucking the folds of his banyan when Childermass walks through the door.

It is truly a sight to behold. Compared to the last time they have seen each other, this Childermass, although still unsettlingly pale in his mourning clothes, looks refreshed. He is fresh-shaven if not smoothly so, at peace if not well-rested. His black neckcloth is clean, hair combed through although it is now streaked with white, a sharp contrast to the even brown of before Mr Segundus’s death. But that is the only visible trace of the same grief that, John Honeyfoot had thought, might kill Childermass.

“Mr Childermass!” Exclaims Mrs Honeyfoot. Were he another person, she would certainly, perhaps not embrace him, for Mrs Honeyfoot is ever so proper, but touch him on the shoulder, like she would with Mr Segundus, entwine their arms so lead him to the sofa. None of this happens, of course: their friendship, if friendship must be, must be built anew. She hesitates at first, and then she says softly: “You must feel his loss very keenly.”

It is the right thing to say. Childermass nods, bestowing on Mrs Honeyfoot the rarest of things: a smile, which creeps to his dark eyes brushing years away from his face. “You have been kind to me, Mrs Honeyfoot. I have taken the liberty of bringing some books back from London. Some poetry from that Shelley fellow. They are being unpacked downstairs.”

He sits on the couch as if he has been invited to. Childermass is a man who has much never felt the need to stand on ceremony when he has an understanding with someone, which he thinks he does with the Honeyfoots. He leans on his walking stick, which he must have taken to carrying only lately, perhaps brought back from London. It is a lovely black one, with a rust-coloured handle made of finely worked hair, encased in a glass sphere.

“Let us talk about the school.”


End file.
